…This pretty much defines the global humanitarian crisis that we routinely downplay as “patriarchy.”

Hold onto your hats.

Balochistan Senator Sardar Israrullah Zehri stunned the upper house on Friday when he defended the recent incident of burying alive three teenage girls and two women in his province, saying it was part of “our tribal custom.” [cite]

The justification for this appalling hate crime? The women wanted “to marry of their own will.”
The fiends perpetrating this savagery — a group that apparently included some village bigwigs — first wounded the women with gunshots, “in the name of honour.”

I will give you a moment to digest the unspeakable horror.

Of course, Twisty should not be writing like this, as according to the Great Narrative of Strawfeminism™, she should be excusing the killers on the grounds of cultural sensitivity. However, Twisty, like the rest of the feminist blogosphere, doesn’t care about the Great Narrative and just gets in there with her boots. (See also.)

You know, I have great trouble finding all these feminists who want to excuse etc., etc. I just can’t find them. It’s true that, my time being limited, my feminist blog- and book reading tends to be limited to people who I think are intelligent and have something worthwhile to say. But it does appear to my simple reality-based mind that feminists in general condemn these things just as you would expect they would. Not wanting to bomb the country in question doesn’t count, in my book.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Australian cricket team, who have already postponed their Pakistan tour because of “security” concerns, expressed their disgust at the lack of “security” suffered by ordinary Pakistani women in their own country, and boycotted the place completely in 2008.

No personal affront intended Oz Ozzie and I do not know (for sure) your gender, but would add:

“The lack of Human Rights, Common Sense, and Rational thought” . . . when it comes to how the majority of the world’s men deal with the majority of the world’s women.

This is absolutely unbelievable. At least the upper house were stunned. Nothing will happen, no one will be brought to trial. It will be forgotten.

You know how people in Australia are fond of saying ‘she’ll be right? Well if you say instead “he’ll be right” it takes on a whole new urgent meaning implying the complete opposite (and that something ought be done).

Caroline, from the reports I read yesterday in the Indian media it seems that the MP who tried to excuse the behaviour was definitely in the minority and that there is a strong call for an enquiry and charges. Not entirely cheerful I know, but somewhat encouraging.

For those of you looking for some action in this case: this story was brought to light by the Asian Human Rights Commission, and they have a campaign here–http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2008/2969/

I’m kind of appalled at how white feminists are making this All About The White Women yet again.

Also, Twisty gets the Brown People wrong yet again: nobody was condemning the murders on the sole grounds that they weren’t “tribal customs”, they were outraged that murder could be considered a tribal custom, because murder is a heinous crime.

I see the mainstream have picked it up and some men have been arrested. So I stand . . . well let’s see. I’d imagine a conviction of murder is punishable with execution. And gee, well that ought to sort it out.

What is the saying? Men fear women will laugh at them. Women fear men will kill them.

Yes, it seems one Tooly McTool claimed it as an “ancient tradition” and basically all the other people in the report repudiated that utterly, as did the journalists reporting it. I haven’t had time to read the SMH version which I see appeared today, but I saw there was a photo of a protest.

I think the thing people should be worried about is the fact that this case came to light, and I get the sense that similiar cases don’t come to light. If the culture allows this sort of thing, or even something similiar, such as simple psychological pressure not to arrange one’s own wedding, that is disturbing from a western point of view.

Of course, ‘from a western point of view’ is a problematic phrase, given that anyone would feel somewhat disturbed at not being able to arrange their own wedding, I imagine.

Laura, the thread at I Blame the Patriarchy basically devolved into a discussion about white women’s lipstick choices as a gauge of their gender politics…people seemed to forget that the women who were buried alive even existed.

Thomas wrote: anyone would feel somewhat disturbed at not being able to arrange their own wedding, I imagine

Actually, you got it right the first time Thomas. There are a variety of marriage practices the world over, some of them involving “arranging one’s own wedding” and some not. But I think it’s a particularly Western conceit to imagine that one’s own standards apply to everyone across the board.